My sister when she was very small had a cat, a moggy called Mitzi. She totally adored this little cat.

She so loved this cat that she used to dress her up in bonnets and long babies' dresses, and take her for long walks in the sun in her doll's pram!

Talk about a sight for sore eyes - there would be this tiny cat, dressed in white , with it's little be-whiskered face poking out from under a lace edged babies bonnet while being held down in the pram by my sister's unremitting little hand, as she carefully negotiated the drive with a somewhat determined look on her face.

The cat was a dear little thing however, and seemed to understand that nothing untoward was going to happen to her, so luckily her attempts to escape were half hearted and few and far between.

But whenever there was a lull in the proceedings and my little sister took her mind off the ball - sorry I mean the cat - Mitzi would make a bid for freedom and take a gigantic leap out of the pram: the race would then be on. There they would go across the back lawn, down the drive , across the front garden with the cat dressed in it's little bonnet and matching dress, being pursued by a three year old determined to have her live dolly back in the safety of her care in the pram.

Funnily enough Mitzi would invariably allow Susan to catch her and put her back in the pram! It was as if she knew that she had to fulfil this role of allowing herself to be mothered , and indeed when she was impregnated by Lolita , the white boy cat we thought was a girl, she turned out to be a great little mother who really cared about her own babies - her kittens.

copyright: a.a.gallagher